This is the latest interview in our Meet Your Guide series. The guide is Steve Fallon. Steve’s packed more living – and travel and productivity – into a few decades than anybody I know.
As you’ll hear, Steve grew up near Plymouth Rock. In Massachusetts. He’s lived in London for 27 years.
A quick aside. The Captain and crew of the Mayflower lived in Rotherhithe in London. The year of the world-changing voyage was 1620. There were big plans for the 400th anniversary but Covid put paid to them. You getting my drift? That’s right, you got it. Steve’s picked up the torch. He’s created – and who better placed to do it – a fascinating virtual tour called In the Wake of the Mayflower 400 Years on – a Virtual Voyage. And yes, there’s one this week – on March 31.
Now as for this interview – it’s a plum pudding of an interview. It’s all good stuff – this is a very bright guy who’s lived all over the world. A guy who can tell you fascinating things about all the countries he’s lived in and travelled to. A guy who’s “met Joe Biden many times.” A guy who wrote the first editions of London, Paris, Hungary, Slovenia for Lonely Planet. A guy who’ll give you the best steer you’ll ever get about where you want to head to if you want the best Chinese food in London.
“I met Joe Biden many times”
“I always study Turkish because I have a house in Turkey”
“we met studying Irish together”
“no, no I’m learning Navajo”
“we opened Asia’s first travel bookshop”
“I could have gone anywhere because I was writing guidebooks by that time”
“of all the cities in Eastern Europe it feels like a mini Paris”
“we were in Hong Kong just over 12 years”
“uh, oh, we’re in China now”
“we were journalists so we got lots and lots of free publicity”
“the rents were killing us”
“you’ve got to be very curious”